6 August 2010 | Lindsay Clark

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) is asking suppliers for ideas that will ensure the UK’s armed forces are able to live, work and train on a sustainable defence estate.

The MoD’s Defence Estates, which includes military training facilities across the UK and beyond, has begun planning a sustainability agenda for future suppliers as part of a programme to develop new commercial arrangements for facilities management, new-build projects and the management of training estates and military houses.

Its recent industry focus group on sustainability and energy included discussion on encouraging MoD suppliers to deliver low-carbon measures on this estate, and achieving other sustainability targets, including for water, waste, heritage and biodiversity.

“We must meet a range of statutory sustainability requirements and we are determined to ensure that our whole defence estate – particularly military training facilities – can continue to support operational output as efficiently as possible,” said Mark Grant, head of contract development for next-generation estate contracts.

“Responsible stewardship of the nation’s defence estate is vital to delivering better value for money. That is why we are putting sustainable development at the heart of these new contracts and looking for future suppliers who are prepared to invest and innovate to reduce consumption and waste on the defence estate, in return for a share of the savings.”

Defence Estates is now developing the structure and terms of the new contracts. This includes converting the sustainability and energy focus group’s ideas into a framework for evaluating its future suppliers’ sustainability performance, and developing processes for prioritising estate maintenance tasks against sustainable development themes.